The Stranger by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online Page B

ceiling of white.
    When she came to the place where pools of water lay below each side of the raised pathway, snow had covered the ice, and had Nicoletta not seen the lakes before, she would have thought they were fields; she would have thought it was safe to run over them, and dance upon them.
    The cliff wall was hung with frozen water from springs deep in the earth. Snow danced in gusts, spraying against the cliff like surf and falling in drifts at the foot of the rocks.
    A piece of the cliff moved toward her.
    Nicoletta held out her palm like a crossing guard, as if she could stop an avalanche that way.
    It was stone, and yet it walked. It was snow, and yet it bore leaves. It was a person, and yet—
    It was the creature.
    She could see its eyes now, living pools trapped in that terrible frame.
    She could see its feet, formed not so differently from the huge icicles that hung on the cliff: things. Dripping stalagmites from the floor of the cave.
    She felt no fear. The snow, falling so gently, so pure and cleanly, seemed protection. Yet snow protected nothing but ugliness. Ugliness it would hide. Filthy city alleys and rusted old cars, abandoned, broken trikes and rotting picnic tables—snow covered anything putrid and turned it to perfect sculpture.
    Even the thing, the monstrous thing that had stank and dripped and scraped—it was perfect in its softly rounded snowy wrap.
    “Go away,” it growled. “What is the matter with you? Don’t you understand? Go away!”
    “I want to find Jethro.”
    It advanced on her.
    She backed up. What if I fall off the path? she thought. What if I fall down on those ponds? How thick is the ice? Will I drown here?
    “Go away,” it said.
    “I know Jethro lives here somewhere,” she said. “You must know him. He takes this path. The path stops here! Tell me where he turns off. Tell me where he goes. Tell me where to find him.” She could no longer look at the thing. Its face was scaly, like a mineral, and the snow did not cling to its surface, but melted, so that it ran, like an overflowing gutter. She looked past the thing and saw the black hole of the cave. It wanted her. She could feel its eagerness to have her again. She tore her eyes away and wondered how she would get past the cave to wherever Jethro was.
    “Why does he matter?” asked the thing.
    Why does Jethro matter? thought Nicoletta. I don’t know. Why does anybody matter? What makes you care about one person so deeply you cannot sleep?
    She said, “He wasn’t in school today.”
    The creature said nothing. It turned around and moved toward its cave.
    “Don’t go!” said Nicoletta. “I’m worried about him. I like him. I want to talk to him.”
    It disappeared into the cavern.
    Or perhaps, because it was stone and sand itself, it simply blended into, or became part of, the cliff.
    She followed it. She ran right after it, inside the flat and glowing walls of the entrance.
    “Stop it!” the thing bellowed. Its voice was immense, and the cave echoed with its deep, rolling voice. “Get out!”
    “I love him,” said Nicoletta.
    In the strange silence that followed, she could see the thing’s eyes. They had filled with tears.
    Only humans cry. Not stones.
    “Who are you?” she whispered.
    But it did not answer.
    The only sound was the sharp unmistakable report of a rifle. Nicoletta whirled.
    “Hunters. They think I’m a bear,” whispered the thing. “They’ll come in here to shoot me. Poachers.”
    “Have they come in before?” she whispered back.
    “They don’t usually find the cave opening. Sometimes they see me, though, if I’m careless, and they follow me.”
    She could hear the loud and laughing voices of men. Cruel laughter, lusting for a kill.
    “If they see you move, they’ll shoot you,” it told her. “They shoot anything that moves.”
    “I’ll go down in the cave with you,” said Nicoletta. “We’ll be safe together.” No snow remained on the humanoid creature. Its stink